


The Infinite and Impossible

by tridecaphilia



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Spoilers for Episode: s07e14 The Name of the Doctor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 18:43:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tridecaphilia/pseuds/tridecaphilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's sad when it's over.</p><p>But the TARDIS is clever, and she knows it never really has to end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Everywhere

Somewhere in time and space, a young woman has spent the past year in the Dalek asylum, unaware that she’s joined their ranks.

Somewhere else in time and space, the same young woman puts up her hair and poshes up her accent to go be a nanny to a pair of young children.

In yet another place in time and space, the same young woman has been uploaded into a computer, and will momentarily be downloaded again.

But what no one knows, not even this young woman, is that these are not the only ones of her in space and time. This young woman is everywhere. She lives, she breathes, she bleeds. In all of time and space, there she is.

Once upon a time, as it were, a machine who loved a thief got the chance to speak to him, and learned what it was to be alive.

The machine didn’t want it to end. And so came Clara Oswald, the infinite, impossible girl.


	2. Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara begins to remember.

_“I’ve been looking for a word. A big, complicated word but so sad. I’ve found it now.”_

_“What word?”_

_“‘Alive’. I’m alive.”_

_“Alive isn’t sad.”_

_“It’s sad when it’s over.”_

Clara Oswald woke up with tears on her face she couldn’t explain. She tried to remember the dream—it had been so good, but so sad. Sad when it’s over, she’d said.

The voice hadn’t been hers. But the man she’d been talking to—she’d known him.

“Doctor,” she murmured.

She sat bolt upright in bed, a wild smile bursting onto her face. The Doctor—he’d been real. The machines, being uploaded—okay, that hadn’t been fun, but moving through space and time had been. It’d been incredible. And the Doctor had said he would be back today.

Of course, when you have something to look forward to the minutes drag by, and it didn’t help that the Doctor and his time machine weren’t at all punctual. Clara waited on the bottom step after sending the kids off to school, until she heard the whoosh of the engines and her thief was back.

It was only when she was in the blue box with the Doctor that she caught what she’d called him. And then there was no reason to bring it up with him.

~

Clara began to notice after the “ghost”. Akhaten felt familiar. Being in a Russian submarine was eerily comfortable. But it wasn’t until she piloted the TARDIS into a collapsing universe and felt her own lungs collapsing under the pressure of nonexistence that she realized what it meant. In the instant the TARDIS flew out of the pocket, the machine’s mind and Clara’s reconnected for a split second. For just a split second, Clara knew everything, saw everything, felt _everything_ in all of time and space.

And then it was over, and she and the Doctor were back in proper reality. And the knowledge faded as quickly as it had arrived.

Still, even though her mind tried valiantly to block everything, Clara couldn’t help but put the pieces together after that. All of it—déjà vu no matter where in the universe she was. Familiarity no matter what situation she found herself in. And the dreams—dreams she’d had since she was a little girl, of different lives in different places. Dreams that always, _always_ turned out to match up with the history of those places.

And then the TARDIS blew up. And for the first time, Clara was alone in the console room, alone with only the TARDIS to talk to.

~

The TARDIS didn’t speak in words. But through the play of the console lights on her face and the soft beeping, Clara got the meaning. Of course, it also helped that—as she remembered now—she _was_ the TARDIS. They spoke the same language because they were the same being. The same mind, split into so many bodies.

“I know,” Clara said in response to that. “The rest of us…” she smiled. “I’ve dreamed about them. They’re beautiful. They’re all living wonderful lives.”

Another question.

“Yes, of course.” Clara looked up in the direction she thought the Doctor was, even though the TARDIS was so warped internally it was very difficult to pinpoint a single direction. “We will be with him to the end of his days.”

Of course, that too was wiped away when the crisis was averted. But the TARDIS didn’t fight her anymore after that.


End file.
